Tag Archives: Health Update

It’s been a long time. A really long time. I apologise! My life has been quite the rollercoaster with work going a bit insane, moving & just being crazy disorganised.

So what’s new? Well, I’m very nearly discharged from the hospital for my diabetes. With work, I was just grabbing food whenever I could, binge eating as I had no idea when I would have time to eat next and drinking an awful lot of sugary drinks to give me energy, which was then followed by massive sugar crashes. I know I was burning myself out but when you’re working with family, sometimes you don’t know how to say no. So the result of this was at my yearly check up in June 2016, the nurse was really worried about my HBA1C (blood sugar level over the past few months) as it had increased rather than decreased. I was given gliclazide, a blood sugar monitor for the first time and a referral to the diabetes clinic. My blood sugars were ranging from 4.2 to 15 and I was all over the place. Though my blood sugars came down, I was a bit of a mess to be honest!

When I visited the clinic in January 2017, the nurse I was with suggested that maybe I try the newest diabetes drug (SGLT2 inhibitors) Farxiga, which prevents the kidneys from reabsorbing the sugar and instead is passed through urine. I recently posted on my instagram that this medication has suited me so much better. Instead of my blood sugars jumping all over the place, I’m now usually around 5-7mmol/L and my energy levels are so much better.

To give you an indicator of how bad it is, the target for HBA1C is 48. In September last year, my result was 98, which is scarily high and more than double the target figure. The gliclazide lowered me to 78 and in May, I hit 60. I have also lost around 4kg (all my doctors now weigh in kilograms opposed to stones and pounds so I’m trying to make the conversion!) which is around 9lbs. My total weight loss from my original start weight is currently at 1st 5lb which is about 8.5kg. It’s been really slow progress but this scare has given me a huge kick up the backside.

I saw my diabetes nurse at the GP the other week and as my blood pressure is now at around 102/77 (before it could hit 147/112 – 120/80 is ideal I think) so she said we’ll monitor my blood pressure as I lose more weight as my medication will need to be adjusted. I literally can’t wait as at the minute I’m taking around 7 tablets for my diabetes and blood pressure, 1 for my hayfever and 2 supplements for hair and energy (I have had quite a lot of hair loss recently due to stress) so less tablets would be more than welcomed.

Current stats:

CW: 93.4kg or 14st 9lb
BMI: 35
Body Fat: 43.4%

Alongside that, in a couple of weeks I will be down a job. I’m now preparing myself for the drop in income by tightening my belt and so I’m getting full swing into meal prepping and researching my shopping list first – so these will be back! I will be looking at weight loss on a budget and keeping tabs back on here to keep me accountable.

Hope you’re all well. As I mentioned in my last post, I was referred to the hospital by my diabetes nurse and I had the appointment last Thursday. Originally, I didn’t quite understand why I was being referred – my nurse mentioned that “there might be a third type of diabetes” – I can say that after this appointment, I’m pretty sure she was wrong.

I headed up to the hospital and they took my blood pressure, current blood sugar levels, weight and height. I then saw the specialist diabetes nurse who then explained that the reason why I was referred was because I wasn’t exhibiting classic diabetes symptoms. I have also been diagnosed with high blood pressure and she had asked if either had been fully investigated, which I was honest and said I had a bunch of tests done when I was about 18/19 but all I remember being told was that I had PCOS and when I wanted to try for kids, I should be re-referred back to them.

Having this appointment was actually really useful. Since my diagnosis about 4 years ago, I hadn’t actually had everything fully explained to me and what the tests were and what the preferred number ranges were and how I compared. After going through my health history (though they didn’t seem to have any details before my move in 2011, which is when I did all those tests – very reassuring!), she then explained that because I didn’t have all the symptoms and my results didn’t seem consistent, she thought that maybe I didn’t have full on diabetes – that it was possible that something else was causing my blood sugars to rise to look similar to it but that it was a symptom rather than the cause.

She then asked the endocrinology nurse to come see me and basically because I have had eczema since I was a baby and had been prescribed steroid cream (e.g. hydrocortisone, elocon) to help during flare ups and infections (more so when I was younger; I tend not to use them that often now), I may have something called Cushing’s Syndrome. This is basically a build up of cortisol in the body and my symptoms seemed more in line with that.

This made sense and so I’m going to be under investigation and hopefully will have a better idea if I’m affected by this or not in about a month or so. I have done a few blood tests and I have to do two 24 hour urine tests (not fun, I can tell you) and submit those to my GP this week. I will probably do a more detailed post on Cushing’s Syndrome as it is something that I hadn’t heard of until last week and on reading about it, it seems difficult to diagnose.

So all in all an eventful appointment. I have a follow up appointment with the diabetes nurse in January. She has asked me to do blood sugar readings twice a day (rather than just before I drive) so she can see how I’m doing as when I took the monitor in last week, the readings were a little sporadic. I was really nervous to go but I’m glad I did as the hospital nurse seemed to have a lot more time for me and was willing to go through everything I wasn’t sure of and reassuring me that what I was doing was right. It was a nice change from the blind panic of my annual check up at the doctor’s a couple of months ago.

Sorry for the standstill in posts. I’ve been working my butt off (unfortunately at work rather than at the gym) and barely had a minute to myself.

Today I thought I’d give an update on my health situation, especially as I am due a hospital appointment early next month. My weight has been pretty steady the past two months, despite the eating of junk/restaurant food when I’ve been working 12-14 hour shifts so I’m guessing being on my feet for most of that time has put it on an even keel. The diabetes nurse I saw in August said my weight has dropped since I last saw her about 15 months ago – I think I was about 15st 8lb and now I’m around 15st.

My blood pressure is good but unfortunately due to the aforementioned bad eating, my blood sugars have gone up despite the good news everywhere else. So she has upped my Metformin to two tablets twice a day and after speaking to a specialist at the hospital, she has also prescribed my gliclazide tablets. Unfortunately this and a blood glucose monitor was prescribed to me over the phone so then I had to wait for another appointment to actually show me how to use it and the side effects as I have to ensure that my bloods don’t fall below 5 or I’m not able to drive.

So, I have been trying to remember to take them. On days where I work my second job, I find this a lot harder as I’m forever running about and next thing I know it’s bedtime so trying not to be patchy so when I go for my appointment next month, they don’t try and prescribe me more medication as they don’t see an improvement because I’ve been too busy to make sure I’m caring for myself. Yes, I know it takes a few minutes but I suck at it for some reason.

Hopefully it won’t be too much bad news when I go and see the specialist at the hospital. I’m going to try and kick start my healthy eating (starting with trying to stick to 3 meals a day rather than 1 humungous meal just before bed) and drinking lots of water. Two basic goals I’ve really been struggling with but it needs to be done. The amount of tablets I take is actually quite worrying and forgetting to take them isn’t going to help decrease the amount so it’s back on the wagon for me.

On another note, any handy tips for someone who doesn’t have time to food prep anymore? I work between 70-90 hours a week at the minute and barely have time for laundry, never mind a nice lie in. Any hints would be much appreciated!